# What are the emissions from recycling lithium ion batteries?

Canonical: https://senseible.earth/answers/lithium-ion-battery-recycling-emissions-per-tonne

It depends on the route. Shredding to black mass uses mainly electricity; furnace routes add fuel and burn the graphite and electrolyte; chemical leaching routes use acids and reagents. Report per tonne of batteries processed, and state which route you use.

## What to record

- Tonnes of batteries received.
- Electricity and fuel by process step.
- Reagents bought, for Scope 3.
- Output: black mass or recovered metals.

## Claims

Recovered metals can lower a buyer's footprint compared with mined metal, but only with records of the recovery route and quantities.

## What Senseible does here

Senseible reads bills, fuel invoices and production records into dated, fingerprinted records, so the figure you send a buyer can be traced to its documents.

- [Lead acid battery recycling](https://senseible.earth/answers/lead-acid-battery-recycling-emissions-per-tonne)
- [Imported lithium ion cells](https://senseible.earth/answers/carbon-footprint-of-imported-lithium-ion-cells)
- [EU battery recycled content](https://senseible.earth/answers/eu-battery-recycled-content-documentation)

Sources: [GHG Protocol Corporate Standard](https://ghgprotocol.org/corporate-standard), [GHG Protocol Corporate Value Chain (Scope 3) Standard](https://ghgprotocol.org/corporate-value-chain-scope-3-standard), [Central Pollution Control Board](https://cpcb.nic.in)

Last reviewed 2026-10-22.